Comment Re:More moaning and groaning for nothing. (Score 1) 206
From a previous post: "First names are almost always two syllables in Korean, and are hyphenated." - Yes and no - see below.
"One nitpick: The hyphenation thing is a Westernism and somewhat antiquated at that. None of the Chinese I know (including my wife and her relatives) use it when writing their names in Latin characters or Hanzi. Generally they just write their given name as one word."
That's true (but see below) for Chinese names, but for Korean names using or not using hyphens seems to vary. For example, on London's Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) website none of the given names of the staff have hyphens, and none are separated. But on the current front page a film director is "Bong Joon-ho" and the violinist is "Kyung Wha Chung" (surname Chung). The Korean newspaper Chosun website uses hyphened given names in its English pages, as does the Korean Film Archive (based in Seoul) database. Note that in my experience typically a hyphenated Korean given name is like this BAE Doo-na" and MOON So-ri (two rather good Korean actors): that is the second part of the given name is not capitalised.
That said, to "confirm" all this I just looked at two calling cards I have in my wallet. The Korean one (from a KCC staff member) does not have the given name hyphenated, but the card from a Chinese-American assistant professor at a major London university *does* have a hyphenated given name, with both parts of the given capitalised.
So the polite thing to do is use a name as a person themselves uses it, no matter how you or I consider it should be spelled.